


Lance and the Wild Thing

by AmbitiousSkychild



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ADHD Lance, Awkward Keith, Female pronouns for Pidge, Galra Keith, Keith is irresistible, Lance is Bad at Feelings, M/M, kinda covers season 2 and 3, lance is in some SERIOUS denial, lance running-from-his-feelings mcclain, shiro loves slav pass it on, video diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 10:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbitiousSkychild/pseuds/AmbitiousSkychild
Summary: Lance misses his family, so Hunk gives him the idea that since he spends all his free time on his screen anyway, he could make videos to show his family when they make it back to Earth.Of course, what was supposed to be videos of his adventures and his surroundings to help him deal with the distance, mostly all wind up being videos about dealing with Keith.Or: Lance is in some heavy denial about a certain Red Paladin and his new hobby makes that harder and harder to hide.





	Lance and the Wild Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [this](http://kxlance.tumblr.com/post/164100962908/lance-takes-the-habit-of-recordings-vlogs-that) Tumblr post!
> 
> Lance spends most his free time watching Keith through his screen

Earth Year: 2127, 13. Nov. 9:03pm.

“So, family. Mom, Dad, siblings.” Lance cleared his throat and the screen shook a little. He was in his room alone on his bed and feeling anxious for talking to a screen like a loon, but Hunk told him it might help, so. Here he was. Talking to his screen like a loon. “I thought, since we all have these screens now, that I could, like, document the stuff that happens out here. In case something happens to me and this is all that’s left, and. You know, because I miss you. And this is as close as talking to you guys as I can get right now, so–”

He sighed, tried to stop looking and feeling so _sad_ about all this.

“It’s kind of my fault we’re out here? I made Hunk sneak out with me and we followed Pidge onto the roof where she was looking for _aliens_. Crazy, I know – that’s what I said – but she was right. We uh, wound up in _space_. That’s where I am. I’m not going to go into detail about it right now because it’s all too crazy, and I don’t want to overwhelm you, but for now, I just want you to know that I’m okay, and I miss you guys every day.”

*

When Hunk found out about Lance taking his advice he enthusiastically suggested that Lance introduce his family to everyone else on the castleship – all his new friends.

And Lance would admit he hadn’t really thought about what that really meant or how to tackle that, or ever really tackling it at all until the night they ventured into the space mall for scaultrite and made it out with Kaltenecker. He _had_ to tell his family all about that.

“So, I have a cow!” Lance grinned into his screen. Hunk ducked into the shot over his shoulder. “Her name is Kaltenecker! I’ll show her to you later, but for now, you can meet everyone else. You already know Hunk,” he started.

“Hey, McClains!” Hunk exclaimed as they stepped into the common room and moved toward the couch. “As I’m sure Lance has told you again and again, and again since last week, we’re all working on becoming heroes out here and sometimes, that means stealing a cow.”

“We didn’t steal her!” Lance protested, shooting Hunk a glare. “She came with mine and Pidge’s purchase. Oh, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Pidge at the Garrison, but she’s over there trying to hook up our new gaming system.” Lance quickly directed his screen to the other side of the room where Pidge was huddled on the floor surrounded by cables and wires. “Say hi to my family, Pidgey!”

“ _Don’t distract me right now, Lance_ ,” she hissed instead, eyes glued to her tools, glasses glinting and hiding her pupils. “You know, this is half _your_ machine. You should be over here helping me, but instead, there you are with Hunk, making a _fucking_ –”

“Okay, that’s Pidge, she’s a delight!” Lance exclaimed, laugh forced as he brought the screen view back onto himself. “I’ll show you everyone else. I promise they’re all in _much better moods_ ,” he hissed at Pidge.

Pidge threw a cable at him out of the shot. Lance squawked and Hunk failed at stifling a cackle.

“Alright that’s, uh, that’s Shiro over there,” Lance powered on, swiveling his screen to the Black Paladin, standing by the glass with his back to them. “Our fearless leader, _the Black Paladin_. Shiro! Turn around!” At the sound of his name, Shiro turned around looking confused, but all-around adorable, and Lance slowly tilted his screen up and down in a nodding motion. “ _Right_?!” He hinted appreciatively, suggestively.

Shiro rolled his eyes, walked across the room to Allura.

“Which brings us to the lovely princess,” Lance crowed, let his screen follow Shiro all the way across the room until he stopped right beside her. He zoomed in.

“She doesn’t give Lance the time of day,” Hunk chimed in.

“She _loves_ me,” Lance hissed, “she just recognizes that duty comes first, and I’m an understandable kind of guy.” Allura alternated her deadpan stare between Lance’s screen and slightly above it into his smug face. “This is Princess Allura,” he started, a little louder to be sure he was heard. “She’s a _goddess_ –”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Hunk decided. He nudged Lance’s hands so his screen moved along. “That’s Coran,” Hunk started.

“He’s a gorgeous man,” Lance added.

“I’m Coran,” Coran breezed, though a little cautiously. “What are, um, what are you doing there, lads?”

“I’m making a video for my family so I can keep up with what I’ve been up to. This way, they don’t miss out on anything when I get back to Earth.”

“Oh, that’s rather sweet,” Coran cooed, that faraway look appearing in his eyes, the one that meant he missed Altea.

“And, you know,” Lance rushed out, “this way they can really know my new family.” Just like he hoped, the crease in Coran’s forehead evened out. “See?” he asked his screen. “They’re all really nice people.” He slowly scaled his screen off of Coran and in the opposite direction. “I am surrounded by super nice people and I’m in absolutely no danger at all.”

His screen roved over Keith, sitting on the couch opposite him. He raised a skeptical brow and Lance brought Keith back into focus, like a challenge.

“Uh, that’s Keith. He’s… a guy. Anyway, so everyone here’s super respectful,” Lance continued, zooming in and out on the Red Paladin the more annoyed he looked, “I swear I’m not learning any bad–”

That was when he caught it. There, against the black of Keith’s jeans is his hand, more specifically his middle finger raised straight and tall in defiance and Lance stalled, rolled his screen back up to see an utterly _insolent_ smirk on his face and Lance.

Snapped.

“ _Fucking_ –!”

*recording stopped*

*

Earth Year: 2127, 21. Nov. 12.43am.

“So, uh, listen Mom, that wasn’t _me_ swearing at the end of that video a minute ago. _Obviously_. I promise, I don’t swear, I’m a good kid, we’re all good kids, we’re super respectful and we go to bed on time and we eat healthy food goo, and I am being _very_ believable right now so you can’t kick my ass for this when I make it back–!”

He froze, let his brain play that back to him, and reluctantly accepted defeat.

“Alright, so we both know I’m not fooling anyone. I don’t know why I want to keep you from seeing that I’m… you know, one of those kids you used to glare at _me_ about when you heard them talk like it was _my_ fault,” he chuckled sheepishly. “I just don’t want you to worry. So, I guess I shouldn’t tell you that me cussin’ like a sailor out here is the least of your worries? That didn’t help. But then again, there’s a very real chance you may never see this, or me. Ever again.”

The screen shook as he shifted against his bed, shimmied until he was leaning against the wall. In the beginning, when Hunk told him to try this, he thought it might last a few days tops, but here he was over a week later, having to admit that it really did help. The more he thought about it, of course it did.

Lance got through most his problems by talking even if no one was listening. And in this case, with no one genuinely listening, there was no one to tell him to shut up and make him feel bad when he started to ramble like this.

“ _Sheesh_ ,” Lance groaned at himself. “Anyway. That was Keith. He’s a little... yeah, you saw it. And shit, he brings it right _out_ of me, he makes me so _mad_. Well, he used to make me furious, now he’s just like… you know, like _that_. But anyway, this isn’t about the rivalry Keith _made_ me start with him because he’s a smart-ass, I’m supposed to be telling you about Kaltenecker! Did you know there’s an Earth store in the space mall out here? _It’s literally called Area 51!_ ”

*

Lance could attest that Keith made the most sense on the training deck. And maybe that was because it was the one place he didn’t have to talk. Lance knew that some people just didn’t have the gift of social comfortability. Keith was the fucking poster child.

But on the training deck, things were simple. Just dodges and punches and Keith being infuriatingly impressive, nothing unusual. Lance had gotten used to it, even came to prefer training with Keith to anyone else because the guy never went easy on him, never cut him any slack for goofing around, made him focus, made him _better_.

Not that he’d tell Keith any of that.

Today particularly though, Keith was a little off – odd enough that Lance _noticed_ he was a little snarkier, angrier than usual.

“Lance.”

Lance knew better than to wonder what about, just wondered what he had to do to stop Keith snapping and barking at him like–

“ _Lance_!” Keith screamed, suddenly a lot closer than he remembered, a lot more in focus than he had been previously. “You _have_ to pay attention! I don’t know how many times I have to say it until you pay attention to _that_!”

“Okay,” Lance shrugged.

But it was like Keith didn’t even hear him. “You keep zoning out and you can’t do that in a real fight, Lance!” he continued, though a little less angry and a little more… _upset_. Frustrated. “I know it’s just practice, but can you please, for five fucking _seconds_ , just _pretend_ to take this seriously?!”

“ _Okay_ , Keith, _fuck_!” Lance yelled back, sending back the type of glare that would make a normal guy back down if he knew what was good for him. Of course, Keith didn’t.

He just _stared_ , kept glaring, though there was a little confusion underneath mixed with something else Lance couldn’t quite read. “Okay,” Keith huffed after what must have been years. “Fine. Let’s run it again.”

And as they did, as they ran it again, Lance could tell Keith was trying – with every swing, every kick, every lunge, he was _trying_ – but there was definitely something wrong that wasn’t just going to go away if he didn’t handle it, if he continued to recklessly fight against it like he did everything. And maybe Lance was a hypocrite, but he couldn’t let Keith go around acting like _this_.

“Keith,” Lance huffed, barely ducking a sword attack, “Dude, is something wrong? And, don’t try to deny it, I can tell, so if you tell me what it is, I promise, I will make myself the most focused motherfucker you’ve ever seen for twenty minutes.”

The arm holding his bayard, the one pressing it up to Lance’s throat went slack, bayard clinking against the ground and almost slipping from his grip. “ _What_?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, dude,” Lance reiterated, trying to straighten his posture, even though it was hard since he couldn’t fucking breathe. “We’re teammates, it’s not like I’m gonna judge you–”

“You always judge me, Lance.” His eyes were dark, mouth a hard line, and he looked like he’d never been surer of a statement in his life, and he was so _wrong_.

“Believe it or not, I don’t,” Lance informed him. “You’re the one always judging me.”

“ _What_?” Keith said again.

“But that’s irrelevant,” Lance said quickly because he knew that look, it was the _gearing up for a fight look_ , and that was the last thing they needed right now. “Today’s episode of Life in Space is about you kind of turning into a wild thing about some blatant inner turmoil?”

Keith blinked long and slow like an idiot – Lance prided himself on his patience – before he finally came up with something to say, and when he did, it was a lie. “There’s nothing wrong.”

“Remember the part where I said not to deny it because I can tell?” Lance folded his arms across his chest, dared Keith with his eyes to keep going. “I grew up with a lot of siblings, Keith. I’m a champ at this.”

Keith locked Lance into another blinking session, then shook his head, set his glare onto the floor. “You wouldn’t understand, Lance.”

“So,” Lance started riskily, boldly, “explain it to me.”

And Keith visibly faltered at that, straightened up tall like he forgot how to relax, eyes blown wide like he was on something, before he shook his head. Two small ticks in each direction and Lance would have missed it if he wasn’t watching. His face was different when he looked back up. “What’s wrong is that _you’re_ always acting like this is all some big joke.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance groaned because, _God_ , not only was Keith clearly dodging the issue here with the obvious distraction of picking a fight with him, Lance was falling for it. “I really _could not_ be more serious right now!” And he reached out hopefully, thoughtlessly to grab Keith, or _shove_ him or _something_ to force some reasoning into him.

But Keith, quick, angry reactionary robot that he was, _reacted_ , used Lance’s own weight against him and forced him down, hard and painful into a tackle, and Lance struggled against it, but then _there was Keith_. Leaning over him, face too close and bayard too insistent against his throat. And Lance could feel his _thighs_ pressing strong into his sides, could feel the sweaty fist _clenched_ in the front of his shirt and his–

 _Yeah_ , his _eyes_ were so dark and close to his own and the hair across his forehead fluttered each time one of them _breathed_ and Lance was damn-near _hyperventilating_ , hadn’t been able to breathe properly for the last _half_ _hour_ and–

And maybe Lance should have known, should have been prepared and able to defend himself from a simple tackle attack, but what the _hell_ was supposed to save him from _this_ attack and–?

And there were levels and levels and unfathomable, deep, dark _levels_ to how flustered Lance was because of all this, but he could either succumb or _react_ and of course, he–

“Get the fuck _off_ me, Keith!” he sputtered out scrambling to find a way to get Keith off of him without _touching_ him. He felt like something would fucking _break_ if he put his own hands on him–

Keith had the good grace to start to look embarrassed. Silently, he lifted his weight off Lance and Lance stopped feeling like – like something was just set into motion that he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t,” Keith started, but never finished as he lent a hand down to Lance who took it despite everything in his brain telling him to make this a much bigger deal than it was. “I’m sorry, I just… reacted, and you came at me–”

“It’s fine,” Lance said quickly, dismissively. “I honestly should have seen it coming.” That should have been the end of it.

Instead they stood there awkwardly for a number of minutes and Lance could _die_.

“It’s just,” Keith tried again, forlorn and closed in on himself as he stared a hard hole into the ground. “Listen, I know you have a lot of skill, Lance. And I know you trust us to have your back, but you need to be prepared in case one day, you can’t. In case something _happens_ and the person behind your back stabs you in it.”

The moment it left his mouth, he looked like he wished he never said it. Awkwardly, apologetically, he moved to pass Lance, dropped a cautious hand onto his shoulder, peeled it back like he touched something hot, then scurried out of the training deck.

Lance had emotional fucking whiplash.

*

Earth Year: 2127, 25. Nov. 7.48pm.

_“Did he just fucking threaten me?!”_

He told himself, had been telling himself since it happened five minutes ago all the way to his room, to calm down, _calm the hell down_ , but in the five minutes that took, his brain had become a flurry of what the hell to think of _all that_.

And his screen picked up everything, from the way he threw himself onto his bed against the wall, and the way his face was still slightly red. The way he couldn’t pick a place to keep his free hand –  in his hair, scratching his neck, messing with his shirt.

It was all a testament, he was _sure_ (thought somewhere deep down sardonically) to how much he obviously didn’t care.

“There is something _weird_ going on with him,” Lance huffed out, using both his hands this time, to keep his screen steady on him as he stared it down like it was the one that needed convincing. “And it’s _always_ him. Why’s it always gotta be _him_?!”

Lance saw his own face, frantic and _aggressive_ , eyes blown wide like now _he_ was the one that was on something.

“Okay,” he sighed out, more calmly. “It’s not my problem. _Yet_. It could become my problem – could become everyone’s problem real soon, since we’re a team and all. I just wish he didn’t have to be so… _ugh_ , so _Keith_ all the time because anyone else would just let their team help them!”

Though, the more he thought about it, the more he thought about himself, he knew that wasn’t necessarily true. He didn’t tell his teammates how much he missed his family. Instead, he made lonely videos alone in his room as if it was them he was talking to.

 _But at least_ , he thought defensively, _his_ problems weren’t in the process of negatively affecting the team.

“One minute,” Lance huffed, back to being utterly confused, “he’s screaming in my face, like normal and the next, he’s tackling me, and telling me I have skill, and then the next moment – _literally the very next moment_ – he’s telling me to watch my back?! What the _fuck_?! It’s like he’s lived on Earth his whole life and never managed to get down Earth customs, and I gotta wonder, did living in the desert alone like a hermit get to him?” Lance asked his screen facetiously. “Was he searching for aliens like a loon out there like that because he secretly is one? I mean, _quiznak_ , there’s already a fuckton of shit around here that don’t make sense, leave it to Keith Kogane to make the top of the list.”

*

When it came to dealing with Keith, Lance learned long ago that the best strategy was to hold his fucking breath. He tended to get really weird and focused and wild about certain things and Lance could never track a fucking trend.

For instance, when Ulaz sneaked aboard their ship and handed them all their own asses fully decked out and decorated on a silver platter each, Keith acted the strangest. Shiro was damn-near _welcoming_ and Keith still acted the strangest.

If it came down to it, in this particular situation, Lance didn’t think he exactly had a side to pick. Something about Ulaz wasn’t exactly _un_ trustworthy. He was Galra, sure – and maybe Lance was just being naïve – but Ulaz was nothing like any other Galra they’d ever encountered. Besides, Shiro only wanted to hear him out.

Lance, personally, didn’t see a problem with that.

On the other hand, there was Allura, and he totally saw her side of this, too.

But, even considering all that, the worthiest thing of note was still, strangely enough, _Keith_ , who was quiet and morose – more so than what Lance was used to. Normally, he’d be ranting and raving to just move on from this, to remember that the Galra couldn’t be trusted, but instead, he was thoughtful and standoffish. He wasn’t even exhibiting his usual mischievous edge lord, cross-armed vagrant look, but something sad and hopeful.

Lance had never seen him look like that.

No one else really seemed to notice and Lance wondered why he always had to be the one who did.

*

Earth Year: 2127, 11. Dec. 9.49pm.

“I mean, it’s not that I, you know… particularly. _Care_. Or whatever,” Lance cleared his throat, awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. His other hand accidentally shook the screen with the movement and he _knew_ he wasn’t helping his case, knew that by saying he didn’t care he was, in fact, kind of showing the opposite.

Whatever, though, who here was going to judge him? His lion slippers?

“He’s, ah, with Shiro right now. In the – in the space taco to face some trials for truth or whatever the fuck?” He looked up, could see his own face, staring uncertain and confused right back at him. “The space taco is… this folding of space that’s usually undetectable. It folds in on itself and these rebel Galra hide in there. Allegedly. It’s a bit of a wild tale, so uh… Keith and Shiro being in there surrounded by these supposedly peaceful Galra we’ve never met isn’t concerning at all.”

Lance knew when there was something bouncing around his head that he didn’t want to think about. He knew how that felt by now. Up until four weeks ago, he’d had that feeling every time he thought about his family, but lately, he’d been feeling it more frequently than before in reference to _something_ _else_ and he felt it harder the more he pushed it down.

“They’ll be fine,” he blurted out to his screen without once deciding to do so. “Shiro’s our leader, and I can admit that Keith is a badass. Nothing’s gonna happen to ‘em, so. Yeah. Nothing to worry about.” He frowned then, as the realization that _yeah_ : “Keith doesn’t know how to quit, though,” made the feeling _worse_.

He took a deep breath, told himself that this was a normal amount of worry.

“I think this is about his knife? Not that he’s told me, or anyone, anything really, about it, but… he clutches that thing like it’s all he has. I don’t think he has a family back home. Maybe this is about that? Although, I guess I always thought he and Shiro were related somehow or something.” He groaned, frustration taking over anything rational he was holding on to. “You know, we’ve all been living out here together for months. We all kind of know each other by now except for Keith because he’s so _weird_ –”

He stopped himself, tried again.

“I really don’t mean that in a bad way, okay, it’s not like ‘ _oh gross stay away from that guy, there’s nothing redeeming about him,_ ’ its’s not like that, he’s just…. God, he’s just sufficiently _weird_ , okay? And maybe that’s just because… I haven’t really got to know him, but sometimes, I swear, he’s like – he’s like… part alien, or, like, a fucking _cryptid_ or some shit, I don’t know. I gotta think about something else.”

*recording stopped*

*

Earth Year: 2127, 13. Dec. 1:21am.

He had this horrified look on his face as the recording started. He looked mortified and sheepish and he opened his mouth, the words tumbling out: “So, it turns out Keith _is_ part alien and I’m an asshole.”

God, saying it out loud made it _worse_ , and he had to hold it in from the moment Keith and Shiro made it back onto the ship and Keith was wearing _that_ , to the moment after he had explained everything and Allura stormed out.

He knew that this really did kind of explain everything. Something really had been wrong with Keith all along, and it wasn’t that he was Galra, it was that he was afraid he would turn on his teammates because of it.

He wanted Lance to be stronger because he thought that one day, Lance would need to take him down.

And even _Lance_ knew – even Lance knew–

“He wouldn’t hurt us,” Lance blurted out to his screen, expression still sheepish and frantic, but now a little sad with understanding. “And Keith should know that. Allura should know that, too,” he said slowly.

He felt sick to his stomach the more he thought about it, but he couldn’t actively _stop_ – couldn’t stop thinking about how Keith must have been feeling when he _suspected_ , when he had his confirmation, when he bravely told his team, when no one… reacted. No one but Allura who stormed out, due to her own inner turmoil, but to see Keith’s face when it happened….

Lance wondered how Keith was feeling now.

“I’d be a wreck. If it were me,” Lance told the screen, told the idea of his family. “I’d just want you guys to be with me. Keith doesn’t even have that. He pushes us away. But he can’t get away with that anymore after this. I guess, as his teammates, we can’t really let him.”

*

When Lance, Shiro, and Pidge made it back onto the castleship from their mission on Beta Traz, Hunk and Keith were already there, exiting their lions. Allura and Coran were nowhere in sight, so Lance took it upon himself to fill in the other half of the team.

“Unfortunately,” Lance continued to Hunk who was the only one really paying attention to him, “I was wrong about thinking I had Slav, _but_! I got the captain’s pet yupper!”

“What’s… what’s a yupper?” Hunk asked.

“It’s this huge, enormous pet that looks like a sentient alien creature, but is really a pet, you’re missing the point!” Lance rushed out, arms hitting the doorways of the common room as he flailed. He trailed after Hunk to the couch, but didn’t sit down, needed the spotlight, even if it was flickering. “So anyway, the hatch opens, and we’re all sucked out into space, and we thought Slav was with us, but he _wasn’t_ , the captain caught him and by the time we noticed, the hatch was closing again, so it was down to me.”

He saw Shiro on the couch across from Hunk’s, rolling his eyes, but in a fond way that made him feel encouraged to continue.

“I saw an opening to hit the captain to make him let Slav go, so I made the shot and it hit it _square on_ and he drops Slav who comes flying out the hatch and into Pidge’s arms and there you have it. _I_ saved the day.” He was grinning, but in denial about it, told himself he couldn’t look cooler right now – not giddy at all – as he remembered how _amazing_ that had felt, reveled in finally starting to earn his spot on this team.

“That’s awesome!” Hunk grinned back, nodding up at him. “Good job, bro.”

“You can call me,” he paused to activate his finger guns, “ _Sharpshooter_.”

Hunk’s grin turned weary. “Oh my God, Lance.”

“Is that… true?” Lance looked up to see Keith doing his usual impression of a kid who just got grounded against the wall – arms crossed, scowl present, hair in his face, the whole shebang. He alternated his gaze from Lance to Shiro and back and Lance couldn’t help but notice that wasn’t judgmental, but curious. “Not the – not the dumbass sharpshooter shit, but the – you saved Slav?”

Lance couldn’t decide if his body was working itself up to get defensive or something else entirely, but Shiro took the spotlight before he could embarrass himself. “Yeah,” he said, smiling kindly over at Lance, then giving a weird look to Keith that Lance had never seen on him. “It’s all true. He saved Slav just like he said he did.”

“But he’s being weirdly modest,” Pidge interjected with this look in her eye that made Lance feel suddenly on-edge. “I heard him saying some pretty interesting stuff to the yupper when he thought no one was listening.”

Oh shit. “ _Pidge_ –”

“Paladins!” Allura called as she entered the room, demanded their attention, took it right off Lance, _bless her_. Coran entered just behind her, stood to her right, just as loyally as always. Allura glanced over them, but Lance saw as Keith edged further away. He saw as Allura’s eyes did’t follow. “Excellent job completing your respective missions! Is there anything of extra interest to report?”

She’d been asking that since they went to the space mall. She found it interesting to hear anything extraneous the paladins ran into. Somehow, as Lance watched Keith, closing further and further in on himself, the question made him nervous.

“Shiro loves Slav, pass it on,” Pidge announced smugly.

No one missed Shiro’s glare and it was _not_ fond at all.

“How about you guys, Hunk?” Lance shrugged, sat down beside him. “I was talking a while. You never told me how yours and Keith’s mission went.”

“Okay, well first of all,” Hunk started, leveling a semi-annoyed, semi-pleading look at Coran. “You gotta update that instructional video, it’s worthless when it scratches out during the important bits. Other than that, it went great! Keith made a new friend in the weblum and–”

“They weren’t a friend,” Keith interjected, keeping his eyes down, trained on loosely crossed arms. “They saved me, but they wound up taking scaultrite, same as us. I think all I did was find another problem.”

“ _Problem_ ,” Lance stuttered out uselessly, because it _hurt_. Hearing Keith talk like that hurt him. And hearing Lance repeat the worst word he could possibly repeat made Keith fold further in on himself.

“Well, if that’s all then,” Allura spoke up, face pleasant, but voice extremely curt. “I’ll be heading off to bed. You all should, too. Goodnight, paladins.”

Lance watched her go, watched Coran wave helplessly at them as he followed after her probably to ask her what the hell that was all about. It left them all in a grossly uncomfortable silence, since they all know exactly what it was about.

“But, ah,” Hunk cleared his throat as the silence turned _pressing_. “I learned something pretty interesting on our mission and it’s that Keith is pretty funny.”

Lance looked up at that, couldn’t stop his eyes roaming over to Keith who lifted his face, a look of surprise there. “Yeah?” Lance pressed.

“Keith’s always been funny,” Shiro chimed in.

“Sure, but he never showed us,” Hunk continued, smile bright, “maybe your Keith was funny, but Galra-Keith is _hilarious_ –”

“Just Keith, Hunk,” Lance corrected gently, keeping his eyes on Keith’s all the while. “Nothing’s changed. He’s still him.” Keith was staring at him, and he was trapped in it for what must have been years when he began to feel other eyes on him as well. He remembered where he was, cleared his throat, went for a joke. “Maybe the real Keith was the friends we made along the way.”

There was a beat of silence before Pidge snorted, then burst into laughter. Hunk fell into a fit of cackling right behind her and Shiro indulged in some light chuckling. Of course, Keith didn’t get it, but he smiled all the same.

Right at Lance, he smiled all soft and genuine, mouth quirked to the side just so, and eyes crinkled a bit at the edges as dark hair fell into them. He pushed them back, and Lance thought – he thought–

For a long time, Keith stayed like that. Even when the conversation moved forward. For a longer time, Lance couldn’t keep up with what he thought, but felt his face making smile-like decisions entirely without him.

*

Earth Year: 2127, 20. Dec. 1:21am.

“I think,” Lance started later that night after they had all disappeared into their rooms, after Lance’s heart stopped doing _whatever_ _the_ _fuck_ it thought it was doing just because Keith looked at him.

He was still red in the face, still a bit flustered, hair wild from his fingers trying to comb through it before he started recording – an idiotic attempt at trying to look normal and not internally compromised in front of the family that wasn’t even really here.

“I think,” and he wasn’t even thinking about Slav, or the heroic, legendary shot he made just hours ago when he said it: “I finally did the right thing?” He felt it happening again – whatever it was that started in his gut earlier _when_ – watched his face burn even redder on his screen before he shut it off, frustrated and a whole lot of something else he was too stubborn to face.

*

Earth Year: 2127, 29. Dec. 7:53pm.

“Hey, guys,” Lance said hesitantly as the recording started. He had his hood up over his head, unruly chestnut tufts sneaking out over his forehead. He was walking out of his bedroom door out into the hall. “Sorry I didn’t talk to you guys on Christmas.” He tried to quiet his footsteps down the hall, but that had always been hard, his feet were so big, shoes so large, and the floors were so squeaky. “We all kind of just… kept to ourselves? It was everyone’s first Christmas away from home.”

He rounded into the next hallway, made sure no one else was wandering around as well before continuing.

“We did all get together before, you know, bed time. Just to see each other. Check on each other. No one could find Keith. I looked everywhere.”

He cleared his throat and shook his head, put out of his mind the way Keith didn’t turn up until the next day. Bright and early, he sat at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of food goo like nothing had happened. Like no one had been _disconcertingly worried_ all night and Lance could have _throttled_ him, he could have–

He plastered on a smile, the wide one. The one his mom always gushed about.

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about today anyway,” he said cheerily, a little forcefully on accident. “I realized the other day that it’s been _months_ –” God, _months_ without his family, _fuck_ , “–and I’ve never shown you around the castleship. So, this is the official tour, I guess.”

Switching his screen to outward view, he slowed his pace a bit.

“So, the castleship is actually fucking enormous,” Lance announced, glancing up at the ceilings he had to believe by faith were there. “This is the biggest building I’ve ever been inside in my life. This castle was just sitting alone and offline on Arus for ten thousand years until we showed up. Allura and Coran were cryogenically frozen all that time, but that’s another story. So anyway, look at the hallways and stuff. Classy right? It’s just walls and floors, but even that’s so high-tech-feeling here, I don’t know. It’s kind of… coldly… _efficient_. Not like a house. Not like home where there’s colors and soft surfaces.”

He shook his head again. He wasn’t going to get all teary-eyed over this just because he was still choked up about Christmas.

“But it’s not so bad,” Lance insisted, rounding into the next hallway, by the bathrooms. “I asked everyone if they’d mind me showing you guys all the lions and they’re cool with it, so now you get to meet all of uuuuuuuuuhhh….”

It took a bit longer than Lance would like to admit for his brain to catch up with what his eyes were seeing, for it to gain back control over his extremities – his _mouth_ most importantly – so he could _shut up_ and duck back around the corner before Keith caught him staring at him, caught him _staring_ at–

He’d just come out of the showers and he’d forgotten his clothes again, covered only by the towel around his waist and the ball of clothes under his arm and he was going to catch Lance _staring_ –

But he was standing there down the hall, looking confused like an idiot, and there was _water_ – just water _everywhere_ , dripping down his neck, running down his chest, sopping into the towel around his waist–

And _his skin_ was so smooth and pale and there was _so much of it_ , so much of it to _see_ like this, and of course he slipped in the water he was dripping onto the floor and dropped his clothes trying to keep his balance and he had to _stretch_ to pick them up and his spine and his collarbones jumped against his skin when he _bent_ like that–

And he was pushing his hair back when he regained his posture, slicked back against his scalp and his entire face was open like a book, no hair to hide it–

_And Lance had been zooming in on each of these attributes respectively, and–_

_This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is so wrong, this is wrong, this is_ – Lance told himself as he realized what he was _doing_ , caught his own fingers pulling the visual in closer and closer–

“Hello?”

He ducked back behind the corner, screen clutched to his chest. His brain was a hiss of blank white noise, nothing forming, nothing thinking, nothing working because _Keith just saw_ –

“Is… is there even somebody there?” Keith continued. He relaxed when he didn’t hear anything back. “One of Pidge’s inventions again,” he sighed to himself.

His brain was back to screaming, telling him that somewhere out there was a god, followed by the command to move and flee the scene before he got busted. Obediently, he booked it back down the hall, screen picking up blurred images of the walls and large shoes against squeaky floors.

Earth Year: 2127, 29. Dec. 8:19pm.

He was breathing hard, legs crossed underneath him in the center of his bed, posture noticeably stiff when the recording started again. Both his lips were sucked into his mouth, eyes comically wide, irises pencil-dot constricted, face red and burning hot, his expression only turning more mortified by the second.

“I’ll delete it,” he promised.

*

He’ll delete it. He _swears_.

*

Lance saw Keith before he thought he was supposed to. He was standing in the doorway of the training deck, leaning, keeping it from closing. And Lance knew he really should have been distracted – sniping the drones and all, focusing on beating the simulation and such, but.

God, when was the last time he didn’t sense Keith coming ten miles away?

Keith spoke up the minute the simulation was finished, sparing Lance from having to pretend he didn’t know he was there. “So,” he murmured, walking slowly, arms crossed like he needed to hold himself in, “Sharpshooter, huh?”

And Lance forgot everything he’d been about to say, nearly dropped his bayard in the act of letting it transform out of its sniper shape. “Is it catching on?” Lance managed to retort.

Keith shrugged, mouth going up at the side. “I hate to admit that it could. You’re really amazing with that thing.”

“What?” Lance exclaimed, loud and animated so he wouldn’t have the time to think about what Keith had just said to him and consequently self-destruct. “A compliment? From you? You feeling okay, Mullet?”

“Ah,” Keith huffed, a small, dry laugh escaping as he lifted dark eyes to meet startled blues. “I could be worse. You know, with. Everything,” Keith said meaningfully.

“Are you alright?” Lance demanded without thinking, and really what he meant by that was: _has someone on this ship said something insensitive_? The worst of it was when Keith started to look like he heard every bit of subtext.

“About that,” Keith started, stepping even closer still. He sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you?”

“What?” Lance sputtered, lost and confused, and, he knew, comically flustered.

And of course, Keith took it wrong, thought Lance was going to make fun of him and got defensive, arms crossing tighter in front of himself. “Don’t laugh at me, Lance,” he glared.

“I won’t.” Lance threw up both hands in surrender, accidentally dropping his bayard in the process.

Keith watched it fall, kept his eyes on the ground. “This is embarrassing, okay?”

“I’m not going to laugh at you, Keith,” Lance swore, watching him until he looked up again.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Keith tried again, voice forceful and frustrated as he switched between glaring at the ground and glaring at him. He looked like a fucking kitten and Lance hated himself. “For saying that the other day to Hunk. About me still being me. You didn’t have to say that.”

“I,” Lance sputtered out, ducking his head to keep Keith’s eyes on him. “I’m sorry, I’m still stuck at ‘you wanna thank me.’”

“I’m _saying_ thank you for sticking up for me like that,” Keith said again, voice hard with agitation, face red in embarrassment. “It was… the last thing I expected from you since I know you don’t like me very much, but I won’t underestimate you again.” He nodded once, then turned toward the exit, and it took way too long for Lance to catch up and realize that he was leaving.

“Wait, Keith – wait, hang on a minute!” Lance rushed out, running around him to block his path. “Is _that_ what this is? You think I don’t like you?”

And Keith faltered, surprised at the sudden change of events. “Well,” he paused. “You don’t.”

“I like you just fine!” Lance told him, hearing the words in slow motion as they tumbled, unbidden, out of his big dumb mouth. Hectically, he tried to correct it. “And I would have stood up for you back there even if I didn’t. You know, just because it’s the right thing to do.”

And Keith. Keith was just staring and _staring_ and making it all worse and Lance’s insides felt like they were eating each other up in the chaos of making sure to tell him he fucked up, _he just fucked up_ – “Oh.” Keith says finally, _finally_. His posture relaxed, arms falling to his sides and it drew Lance’s attention to the torso he’d spent the last week in heavy denial about, praying to God to forgive his pervy sins about. “Well, good, I guess,” Keith said. Lance snapped his eyes back up. “Glad we got that settled and we finally agree on something.”

And Lance swore he could hear it in the way he _said_ that; see it in the way that small smile lingered as he turned and headed out uninterrupted; sense it in the way he came to seek Lance out in the first place. He heard it plain as day in his mind, bouncing around and distracting his brain from anything else it might have been pondering previously:

 _I like you, too_.

And sure, his brain was running laps upon laps in theoretical fields about the _context_ , but Lance had never been all that great at reigning that guy in, anyway – found it all too hard to balance his never-ending hopes and desires with his ever-present denial. He started another round with the simulator, too worked up to stop now. The first droid jumped down and Lance blasted it midair.

“You’re welcome,” he said to no one, now that Keith was long gone and couldn’t hear the _sincerity_ in his voice. “No problem,” he continued, making another clean shot through the head. He grinned, took aim at another and _fired_. “Any time, Mullet.” He lined up another shot.

 

*

Upon hearing the news that Coran and the Olkari would be finished working on the teludav soon, Allura quickly informed the rest of them of her plans to head there the following day. In the meantime, Lance was the first to notice that the rest of them had fallen into a _mood_ about it, about the prospect of this thing going _right_.

Hunk and Pidge were going on excitedly about something far beyond anyone else’s scope of understanding as usual. Even Slav was content, discussing theoreticals with a cross-armed Keith who wasn’t even scowling, and they were _happy_.

Lance noticed the space mice not too long after, playing around out of the way on the floor, and Lance pulled out his screen like a chain reaction, zooming in as they squeaked and ran in circles around each other. He tried to think of something to say while he was recording, since he’d had something to say to his family every time he turned it on, but this time he was coming up blank.

And maybe that was okay. Maybe for today, he could simply show his family his surroundings and not have to say anything. Maybe, just this once, he didn’t need to be overtly entertaining to share something he was experiencing.

Today had been great enough that he thought it didn’t need his commentary.

Shiro and Allura were talking off in the distance like they hadn’t seen each other in days. As Lance zoomed in, it became apparent that they weren’t seeing anything else either, and it hit him somewhere deep down that he should be jealous, but instead, he felt nothing. An extension of further happiness, maybe. Relief from his own tired brain at his reluctant acknowledgement that whatever his weird _thing_ with Allura had been was never real, but Shiro’s certainly was.

He averted his screen the moment he began to feel like he was intruding on a private moment, having learned plenty by way of a previous case of privacy invasion in the form of a wet, dripping heap of _confusion_ barely covered in a towel wrapped around slim hips.

Respectfully, he moved his screen along, back to Hunk and Pidge – Pidge who had her arms crossed and a smug smirk on her face as Hunk tried _adamantly_ to talk his way out of something Lance had no doubt she had walked him right into, the kind of thrill ride only they could enjoy.

“Dude, I’m not saying that it could never happen,” Hunk was saying, face frustrated, but determined as Pidge nodded along condescendingly, “I’m just saying that it isn’t very _likely_.”

“Slav,” Pidge called out, pseudo-sweetly. Lance could feel Hunk’s immortal shame coming from across the room where he sat. “How likely is it that–?”

“Sixty-two percent in this reality,” Slav answered immediately, obviously having been listening all the while he talked to Keith and Lance didn’t doubt – was certain, actually – that Pidge knew that. “It becomes more likely in other realities, but–”

“That’s above fifty percent, I’ll take it, thank you, Slav,” she dismissed, voice dripping poison honey as she smiled at Hunk.

Hunk huffed, angry, but somehow even more huggable-looking than usual, and he said, without even taking his eyes off Pidge: “Get your screen off me, Lance.”

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Lance hissed, averting his screen at the realization that his best friend, though utterly adorable, had the potential to be effectively terrifying when he wanted to be, even if it was directed at Lance.

Slav was back to rambling, but Lance’s screen had found its way to Keith, who looked hilariously bored as Slav went into another gentle tirade concerning the multiverse. It was when Lance let loose an involuntary snicker at his expense that Keith caught him.

He turned his head to Lance, looking ready to yell, but then he noticed Lance’s screen on him. Unlike anything Lance could have predicted, his face went soft and he looked back up at Lance, asked him with his eyes what the hell he thought he was doing, and gave him that rare half smile he gave him back on the training deck the other day. His eyes narrowed a little with how focused his gaze was on Lance’s and his nose bunched up just a bit and it was all caught on the recording and–

Lance’s screen slipped out of his grip.

*

Earth Year: 2128, 2. Feb. 3:23am.

When the recording started, he winced, saw right there on his screen that he looked like shit. He sighed, decided to cut to the chase.

“Shiro is missing,” he said shortly, abruptly. “That’s why I’ve been gone for so long. We’ve all been trying to process it. I mean. We’re all a – a mess, but Allura’s a _wreck_ and Keith is even worse.”

He shuffled further back on his bed, sheets pulled up to his neck, he was so cold and tired, but he couldn’t sleep, too stressed and exhausted.

“Want to know where he is right now?” he smirked dryly. “It’s three in the morning on Earth. And Keith is on the training deck. He screamed at me an hour ago because I was trying to make him get some fucking sleep ‘cause God knows he doesn’t get enough of that anymore.”

A yawn tore up his throat and it felt like a cruel injustice somehow – being this tired and unable to do anything about it, all because Keith _wouldn’t_ do anything about his own goddamn health, wouldn’t listen to anything, wouldn’t stop–

Wouldn’t _stop_.

“He’s doing that thing again where he turns into a wild thing and stops _thinking_. He’s our leader now. I can promise you it’s never crossed his mind that we need him to not be fucking sleep-deprived.”

He scoffed, more sardonic than he normally would be, he knew, because he was just so goddamn tired and frustrated and this had been building and–

“You know, he said that Shiro wanted him to take over if anything happened to him, and I’ll admit, it sounded a little too perfect to me. I told him I didn’t want him leading me anywhere, and you know? He didn’t even get that mad. Reacted more like no one could have wanted that more than he did. Black didn’t choose any of us, but she chose him. And leave it to Keith to be… devastated about it.”

Very intentionally, Lance avoided looking up at his screen, didn’t want to see his face as he talked about this, talked about how he felt about Keith.

“At first, I was kinda salty, but you should have seen his face. He got everything I ever wanted again, on a silver platter. Again. And he doesn’t even fucking want it. _Again_.” Lance groaned, miserable and tired and _fuck_. “But he was miserable and no one else was saying anything. So, I told him – I told him he _has_ to step up. For Shiro. I told him none of us are happy about it, but we have to move on. It’s the only way to find him again.” He scoffed, bitter. “He fucking listened to me _then_ , I don’t know what to say about now.”

Sure, in the midst of a valiant, but epic mistake in the making, Keith listened to Lance. Listened long after the fact, long after Lotor had accomplished whatever he’d set out to accomplish – scared them, learned about them all while stranding them, powerless and clueless on a terrifying hellscape gas planet. _Sure_ , when there was nowhere else to turn, Keith listened _then_.

“I guess it all comes down to,” Lance sighed, frustrated and, this time, embarrassed, “the fact that I don’t know how to talk to him unless I’m making fun of him or our _lives_ are in danger–” _Wait_. His eyes widened in the screen, wheels visibly turning around the cogs of an idea. He stopped the recording, shut off his screen, wrapped himself up in his blanket on his way out.

Keith still fighting like a maniac on the training deck left his room vacant, though depressingly bare. Lance zeroed in on his target, lying innocent on Keith’s suspiciously un-messy bed. People who fucking slept regularly had messier beds, Lance knew, he was an expert at it, and so were all his siblings back home, but he had a long-term fix in mind.

He invited himself to sit atop tidy sheets and fiddle with Keith’s screen, which (Lance rolled his eyes) didn’t even have any type of security to thwart him getting into it.

When he was finished, he left the screen on the desk. Keith would know it had been tampered with and would be encouraged to investigate why.

He scurried back to his room, shocked and a little mortified that he just did that.

He threw himself back onto his bed, found himself just as restless as before, but for a plethora of very different reasons.

*

In the morning, his actions the previous night hit him full force and he dropped his head into his hands, in pure disbelief that he’d really done that. He had really broken into Keith’s room, into his screen to tell him – _fuck_ , he’d never live it down.

His only option, he thought as he forced himself out of bed, into his morning routine, out of his room, to the table for breakfast right past Keith, was to act normal. As normal as he could, anyway, with the hot – too hot – feeling of Keith’s eyes burning holes into the side of his face as he ate, as he tried and failed not to think about it, not to remember it. But he remembered everything he said line-for-line.

_Uh, hey, Mullet._

“Really, guys?” Pidge spoke up after a long silence Lance may or may not have been counting out, keeping steady track of. “We’re just gonna sit here and have a silent-ass breakfast?”

“Pidge is right,” Allura agreed slowly. “Why is everyone being so quiet?”

_Fuck, this is awkward. I’m sorry, but you need to listen to this, okay? Please don’t turn this off._

“Lance,” Hunk said too suddenly, too loudly, and it startled him. He jumped in his seat, barely managed to hold onto his spoon. “You’re the chatterbox out of all of us, what _is_ this? You alright, bro?”

“I’m fine,” Lance answered, bringing his eyes up to meet his teammates’ all for the sake of this _normalcy_ thing he was trying to achieve, but his eyes landed on Keith’s (big, dark, endless, and _piercing_ , fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ) and he faltered, dropped his eyes back down to his food goo. “Fine.”

 _I don’t know how to – to nicely segue way into this, so I’m just gonna…. Yeah, you_ need _to listen to me, Keith. And not just when you’re going reckless and crazy and listening to me is the last option you have._

He hurried to the training deck the moment breakfast was officially over, pretended not to hear Hunk asking about him behind him, pretended not to feel the most distinctive gaze he knew on his back.

_I mean like tonight. When I begged you to go the fuck to sleep and you screamed at me._

He thought Keith might have been there again, in the doorway of the training deck, but he wouldn’t look, kept shooting, kept pushing, kept _missing_.

_You need to listen to me then, too. Because, believe it or not, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not just saying it for the hell of it, I’m saying it because you’re our leader now and I…. I believe in you. Okay?_

Keith wasn’t there when the simulation ended, so he started it again, did it until his nerves stopped holding him back. Until Hunk came in, reluctantly told him it had been hours, told him that he could either quit now and take a break somewhere, or _talk_.

_So, you need to be entirely on your game. And that means you need to get some fucking sleep once in a while._

Hunk, the bro that he was, sat with him silently on the bridge and pretended he didn’t know that this all came back to Keith. It always did.

_Because let me tell you, you may not know this, but in times of trouble, you turn into a wild thing, Keith. And that’s one thing when you’re fully functional, but do you even know what it’s like when you’re delirious?_

Soon Allura came in, then Pidge. Then Coran, and finally, Keith. There was never an official decision amongst the group of them to meet here at a certain time each evening, but it happened organically over time and it was the most punctual any of them got. Keith, kind of excluded, since he always sauntered in last. Lance took out his screen to distract himself from watching him.

_I can’t say I get the lash-out, but I get the buildup, the anxiety that gets you there. That’s why I’m doing this. You need to know you’ve got alternatives to – to freaking out._

Hunk, the bro that he was, leaned into the shot like he didn’t know that Keith coming in and Lance’s screen coming out did, in fact, correlate. All Lance had to do was stick his tongue out and Hunk was right with him, let Lance snap shots to his heart’s content.

 _Try sleeping, or fucking talking to m–_ us _! It’ll help. I promise._

Keith was talking to Coran. Or more, Coran was talking to Keith while Keith nodded but his eyes kept flicking Lance’s way and Lance…. Froze. Went a little numb as Pidge and Hunk laughed at something far over his head to his left because–

_Because, listen. The thing of it is, I’m your friend, Keith. And I know you. I know you overcome all the challenges and you get all the girls and ace all the tests because you’re Keith fucking Kogane and you never let me forget it, but on top of all that…._

Because Keith was trying not to look at him the same way he was trying not to look at Keith.

_I know you can be a great leader. You did it every day at the Garrison. You even did it before Shiro was missing sometimes, when no one was looking._

Keith with his dark, endless eyes. And his alabaster skin. And his thick hair, dark and hanging over his eyes just long enough to be teasing. Just long enough to make Lance want to cross the room and push it back, to make Lance want to see _more_.

_So, what’s stopping you now?_

Lance’s brain told him without preamble then, that it was getting harder to deny this. It told him, now that it had wrestled the microphone out of a stunned Lance’s iron grip, that Keith was _beautiful_. That he always had been. It told him that avoiding it and pushing it down and denying it was never going to make it go away.

_A little attention? Risk of failure? When has that ever stopped you before?_

Keith looked up then, looked up like Lance called his name. He raised an eyebrow and glanced down, and around the time he brought his eyes questioningly back up to Lance’s was about the time Lance realized he’d had his screen on Keith the whole time.

_We’re all behind you, Keith. We all know you can do this. And if you need anything? Advice, or support, or even a fucking hug, motherfucking say something to one of us. All you have to do is trust us._

Coyly amused the longer Lance didn’t look away, Keith offered a half-wave, like if he moved, it might trigger Lance to move, or blink, or breathe, or anything at all.

And Lance, stupidly, uncontrollably, waved back, the tips of his fingers visible in the bottom right corner of his recording as he did, and Keith _smiled_.

_So, just remember one thing, Keith Kogane._

“It’s getting late, Keith,” Hunk said suddenly, knowingly. “Isn’t it about time for you to hit the training deck?”

_You’re Keith fucking Kogane. Failure may have heard of me, but it’s never heard of you._

“No, I’m actually gonna hit the hay,” Keith answered slowly, deliberately. He turned his gaze back to Lance, slightly taunting, but underneath it all, kind of grateful. “I’ve been given an ultimatum and I’m not gonna take it lightly.”

_So, get some fucking sleep, wild thing. Or the next time I talk to you about this, I’m not gonna be nearly this charming._

Keith pushed himself up from his seat, stood idly for a moment, something strong in his eyes, something heavy on the tip of his tongue. Lance leaned forward and the trance was broken, Keith was back to his regular awkward, scurrying out of the room as Lance disintegrated to ash and dust.

_Because I’m gonna charge onto that training deck, screaming like a banshee…._

The room was silent two seconds after the door whooshed shut behind him before Hunk spoke up, looking too taunting for Lance’s liking. “Looks like someone finally got through to him.”

“Damn, I should say so,” Pidge nodded, failing miserably at keeping a straight face. “Wonder who it could have been.”

_Then I’m gonna drag you by the mullet to your room and knock you the fuck out._

Hunk scoffed, but did Lance a solid by getting her off that train of thought. “Why did him saying that sound so threateningly final, though?”

“Right?!” Pidge grinned conspiratorially. “Is he planning on fucking dying tonight?”

Lance chuckled, loose, and _nervous_ , and giddy, and _anxious_ , and–

“ _Ugh_ , Lance, why are you _smiling_ like that?!”

Lance jolted, reversed the view on his screen to see himself, and _there it was_ : Quite possibly the _doofiest_ -looking grin he’d ever seen and it was sitting there, loitering and uninvited on his own face and Pidge was _laughing_ at him, and he could either address all the things inside him making him look like that, or take his frustrations out on her.

“ _Pidge_ –!”

*recording stopped*

*

Lance told himself that Keith really was shaping up to be a great leader. Even when he _was_ going a little wild about certain decisions, it wasn’t like there wasn’t any logic in it, not like Keith wasn’t at least partway making sense.

And that was why Lance made the decision to go to him and tell him that the set-up they had to adopt with the lions wasn’t going to work anymore. Not now that they had Shiro back again.

And, God, it had taken him long enough to work up the nerve to talk to Keith with the worry that he might take it wrong, that he might think Lance’s problem was with Shiro when it wasn’t. The problem was that now they had too many paladins for lions, and yet again….

Yet again, Lance was the least important.

It was his job, as (an admittedly less relevant) paladin, as someone who cared about the universe, as someone who wanted to make it back home someday, to think about how to make sure they did the most good. It was his job to help insure that Voltron was the most effective it could be.

Even if that meant he stepped down.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how Keith looked at him when he said that. Like Lance had just come up with another dumb idea like always, and as he got into the shower, he wanted to be mad, but….

The way Keith looked at him as he left…. When he told him not to worry about who goes where, and that it would all work itself out, Lance knew that he was really trying, and that at least that once, Lance really wasn’t a nuisance to him and his brain started shouting again, loud against his skull how _beautiful_ Keith was and–

And Lance needed to get out of the shower.

Blue robe wrapped securely around his waist and a towel atop his head, he made his way back to his room with every intention of pretending he might delete half-naked Keith from his screen, but stopped in his doorway. Something was off, and it didn’t take him long to spot what it was.

He was certain he’d left his screen on his bed, but Lance saw it, intentional and conspicuous on the surface of his desk and he felt like he had to be asleep somewhere. Knocked out on the training deck. Hunk never came to check on him and he got punched out by a droid, and now he was lying unconscious, dreaming about Keith having been in his room.

He lunged for his screen, turned it on and selected the latest recording with trembling fingers.

Earth Year: 2128, 23. Feb. 9:28pm.

Keith stared back at him, sitting on _his_ bed, stiff and uncomfortable, but determined as he cleared his throat. Lance sucked in too much air.

“Hi, Lance,” Keith started, eyes down.

Lance, gone as he was, had to stop himself from saying hi back.

“I know that everything I wanted to say to you earlier came out horrendously wrong, so I’m trying again,” Keith continued. He glanced up, then back down, forced his eyes back up and kept them there.

Lance ambled onto his bed, eyes rapt on his screen, memorizing the red tint to his skin and how good it looked on him.

“Lance, you called me a wild thing not too long ago. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the first time someone’s called me that. That’s why… that’s why you’re important, okay? What I did with Lotor and that gas planet? That’s what I’m _like_ , Lance. That’s why I can’t – I can’t do this on my own, I can’t _lead_ them. Not – not without you.”

Lance released the air in his lungs like it was punched out of him. His head was light like that was punched, too.

“You get it?” Keith continued before Lance could breathe the air back in, before he could focus his blurry vision. “You’re not just a _number_. You’re not a seventh wheel, Lance, you’re an _anchor_. You keep us going when things are hard, and you make us stop when we’re pushing it. You kept me from falling into a pit of despair about Shiro being gone again, you keep me from getting our team stranded and killed every day, you – I don’t know how you do it, but you make me _listen_ –”

He went silent, eyes wide with embarrassment and something Lance wasn’t currently capable of deciphering right now. He cleared his throat.

“Bottom line is, you’re not expendable, and I have to stop talking.”

*recording stopped*

*

Earth Year: 2128, 23. Feb. 10:14pm.

_“Did you–?! He was–! He said–!”_

*

In a turn of events straight out of left field, Lance had learned exactly two things. One being, that he was a coward. Two being, that because of thing one, Keith had a regular (enough) sleep schedule while Lance’s had become the one out of whack.

It turned out Black wouldn’t accept Shiro back for some reason. Lance was very careful not to let himself think too far into it, not to admit that Shiro was _off_ and there was no way Black didn’t feel it.

Either way though, that only solved half his problem. His Keith problem was the one keeping him up all night. His Keith problem being: two days of overthinking and anxiety. Two days of taking his frustration out on droids and ducking corners rather than pass Keith in hallways.

Two days of irrational terror that Lance read too far into it, and that if he didn’t, Keith would come to his senses. That somehow Keith had changed his mind and Lance was, again, the last to know. That somehow, he was about to get his feelings crushed.

Lately, he’d been venturing onto the bridge late at night while everyone else slept and he couldn’t. He would sit on the couch with his screen and guiltily watch Keith in a towel drop his clothes until the guilt made him stop. It was one in the morning when he stopped pretending he wasn’t going to spend another night doing exactly that. He tossed the sheets off him, slipped on his lion slippers, trudged down to the bridge and he–

He froze in the doorway because there on the couch was–

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance breathed, questioningly, _dumbly_ because now he couldn’t run.

Keith turned to look over his shoulder at the sound of his name, a pleasantly surprised expression on his face that Lance decided he loved. On hesitant, shaky legs, Lance made his way across the room and around the couch, then he stood there a moment as Keith stared, waited for him to finally lower himself down beside him.

When he looked at Keith, Keith was already watching him with wide endless eyes and a concerningly blank expression. Lance found himself both trapped in the _depth_ of his eyes and the terrifying silence, and he knew that when he didn’t know what to do, he _talked_ and–

“I thought we had an agreement, Kogane,” Lance rushed out, too fast with no spaces in between and no end in sight. When he looked back at Keith, he was closer, nearly right in his face and it _scared_ him, made him speed up. “I thought the next time I found you up this late, I–”

Then he couldn’t say anything anymore, whatever was left of that sentence dying on Keith’s lips, and you know what, Lance too, Lance was dying, too. Keith’s hands slid up to the sides of his face and held him still and he couldn’t escape, but God, he wouldn’t dream of trying.

And Keith’s eyes were closed, focused – so focused on kissing the life out of him, and his lashes were so long, fluttering against pale cheeks as he _kissed the life out of him_. The moment Lance put his hands on him, he knew it would be a tough time peeling them back off, but Keith sighed like he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He carded his fingers through Lance’s hair and Lance pulled him closer, _closer_ , nearly into his lap. Keith adjusted himself until it was definite, then he _ground down_ and Lance would deny the noise that came out of his mouth until the day he died, but Keith _laughed_ , soft and somehow still incredibly sexy as he pulled back, just enough that Lance could see him, just enough that their noses still touched.

“You like me, right?” Keith asked, breathing hard as his lips brushed against Lance’s, sent tingles up his spine.

And Lance’s brain finally caught up, finally stopped screaming into the microphone it hadn’t let Lance have back in _weeks_ to let him finally say, to Keith and himself: “Jesus _Christ_ , we are so far past ‘ _like_ ,’ Keith, keep up!”

He dove back in and really, nothing else was said that night.

*

Earth Year: 2128, 28. Mar. 12:49am.

It didn’t take them too much longer to find the real Shiro, though it was a shocking revelation to find out that there was a fake one. It was a hard and confusing battle that left a lot of loose ends that would undoubtedly come back later, but for now, they were happy to have back the real Black Paladin.

Getting back onto the ship in peace resulted in an immediate celebration, Hunk and Coran dashing to cook up Shiro’s favorites. Everyone was fine, Shiro was alive, they were safe another day, and when they’d all tired themselves out and gone back to their rooms, Lance had the thought that he was that much closer to making it back to his family.

Sitting comfortable on his bed, leaning against the wall, he pulled out his screen. Like a chain reaction, his door slid open to reveal one frustratingly beautiful Keith Kogane. Offering a small, greeting smile, he dropped down onto the bed and crawled up beside him, shimmied himself under Lance’s arm like he hadn’t been right beside him all day, like a kitten – something that still made Lance’s heart beat too fast.

Keith was watching him, when Lance turned his screen on, like he didn’t know Lance could see him, and Lance could pretend he didn’t notice, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t flustered.

“We managed to get the real Shiro back,” Lance told his screen. “It’s admittedly, a very long and convoluted story, and I’ll tell you all about it when things calm down, but for now,” he paused for dramatic effect, “this is _Keith_ ,” he grinned, albeit a little impishly. Keith had been avoiding this very scenario for weeks, but Lance had sworn the first time Keith denied him the chance to make a meet-the-boyfriend video for his family, that he’d get his way eventually. Keith grimaced back, reluctantly admitting defeat. “My wild thing,” Lance expounded around a smirk.

“Excuse me?”

“My boyfriend,” Lance amended at the very clear warning in Keith’s voice. He turned back to his screen, knowing grin in place. “But I’m his impulse control, and he can’t take that away from me.”

Keith froze, just for a moment, before his face set with the red Lance loved and _loved_ , then he proceeded to make a cheap shot right at Lance’s heart. “You’re my anchor,” he corrected and he leaned in, sealed it into Lance’s skin with warm lips pressed against his face and Lance _loved_ him. He’d loved him as long as he’d known him and loved him more every day. He thought tonight he would tell him.

Later, though. “Heads up, though, last night, he was _totally_ my wild thing–”

_“Lance–!”_

*recording stopped*

**Author's Note:**

> Lance and the wild thing vs. Keith and his anchor
> 
> Thank you for reading! Come scream at me on [Tumblr](https://ambitiousskychild.tumblr.com/) Leave me a comment, if you fancy ~~~


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